dmb said to Matt:
I really don't understand why you feel pressed or hounded. ... In fact, writing
a monologue or essay, rather than having a dialogue, is one of your favorite
sports. My last couple of posts have come to you in what I thought was your
favorite shape. ...they were aimed at you and your points on your topic in
your style. ...
Matt replied:
Like I told you, it's your style that creates the appearance of pressure and
hounding. Your posts, particularly in the last year or so of your posting to
the MD, are littered with these "see's," and I think this kind of use of them
does create a rhetorical performance like the one I described, particularly
when used on a peer. (That, of course, assumes that one is communicating with
someone one considers a peer: if it isn't, it creates a different rhetorical
performance: condescension.) Whether or not you intend that or not, I think we
need to take responsibility for our rhetorical quirks. And because I consider
it a runaway quirk on your part, I have chosen not to feel hounded, so you've
mis-read me on that score.
dmb says:
You think my use of the word "see" is a condescending rhetorical performance?
But "seeing" is just the way Pirsig happens to handle the topic of creative
excellence in his rhetoric lessons. He also uses the path metaphor, but asking
his students to write about thumbs and coins and upper left hand bricks were
the heuristic devices he used to teach the secret of originality, which he
describes as fresh seeing or seeing with your own eyes. Since my comments are
an extension of the way Pirsig is handling the topic, your objection seems
pretty silly. I've used the word "see" for as long as I can remember and, as
far as I know, nobody ever took it as condescension. As I use it, "see" is just
short for "see what I mean?" or "you know what I'm saying?" or "please notice
this part because it's important" or "look at it this way".
Matt continued:
...I'm quite calmly asking for clarification on all of it, for it all remains
obscure. After all, in these last few posts you have just addressed "Matt" and
nothing at all he's said specifically recently. If he doesn't get it, is it
all his fault?
dmb says:
Actually, I decided to go with the essay style - as opposed to engaging your
specific comments in a dialogue - so that you wouldn't feel pressed or hounded,
so that you could respond however you like. Naturally, I hoped you'd say
something about the substance rather than the style but the aim was to give you
some latitude, some room to maneuver.
Matt said:
So: to think I still need lessons on a good view of amateur philosophy is to
claim that you don't believe me when I say that we are on the same overall page
when it comes to amateur philosophers. Right? I said, "I don't want to
suggest that one should start with standards"; you say, "Oh, I thought you were
saying that" (that was Sept. 19th); and then you give more lessons implying
that I need the lesson that we don't need to start with standards. If that is
_not_ the lesson that was being offered, then, as I tried starting with instead
of assuming you were saying that you didn't think I was sincere, what are you
saying to me?
dmb says:
As I see it, your view is that one doesn't need to start with standards because
one IS standards. That stance simply doesn't make any sense to me. When I
expressed my inability to even see the relevance, you confessed that you
couldn't say because you hadn't quite worked that out yet and then you said
"thanks for the conversation". It seemed to me that you intended to bail out
because you felt pressed to explain. So I wrote a very casual essay about the
ideal reader, which was just based on things I've heard through my earbuds.
Your response to that was something like, "oh, that old trope." Then I wrote
something a little more formal, an essay with quotes from ZAMM that I selected
in order to expand the context a bit and otherwise show how that upper left had
brick fits into Pirsig's overall theme. Your response to that is to file a
complaint about use of the word "see" and all condescension that implies. That
seems pretty dismissive and condescending toward me, so maybe we
ought to just call it even on that score.
Remember, you had said that the brick was static and I replied by saying that
the lesson is not really about bricks, it's about seeing freshly? As is often
the case, I'd said, our difference comes down to the DQ part of the equation.
The essays were both supposed to present my claim without putting you on the
spot or making you feel defensive. I thought, "I'll just make my points and
Matt can respond to whatever part he wants without feeling pressured or
cornered". Instead, apparently, these classroom scenes are just making you feel
like I'm trying to school ya. But talking about this stuff in terms of lessons
and in terms of seeing is just a matter of being consistent with the author's
analogies, a matter of not mixing metaphors too much.
As I understand it, you're asking what it means, as a practical matter, to be a
good amateur. I think that is exactly what Pirsig giving us in those classroom
scenes and I think he's also saying that these lessons can be applied to anyone
at any level, regardless of whether they are climbing a spiritual mountain,
posting a blog essay or even doing stand-up comedy. That doesn't exactly strike
me as a trivial matter. In fact, I think it's kind of awesome and it's very
central to Pirsig's work. He is, after all, a modern day Sophist trying to
resurrect those maligned ancient Sophists - against Plato's fixed and eternal
Good.
Quotes from ZAMM made up most of the last essay. I'll just repeat my comments
about them. Maybe that'll help.
dmb said:
Imitation is a real evil but originality is risky business. Blazing your own
trail up the mountain can get you killed and writing something original can
earn you an F. .., this isn't just a lesson for creative writers. Pirsig's
rhetoric lessons are analogous to the spiritual mountain-climbing lessons and
both are really lessons in living. There are as many routes as there are
climbers and the speed of each climber should be determined by the reality of
his own nature, he says. .. These parallel lessons sort of come together to
serve his overall theme, namely "Corruption and Decay in the Church of Reason".
Pirsig makes a case that the purpose of "real education" is to produce free
men, not mules or slaves. The cart of civilization or "the system" should be
moving forward by efforts of knowledge-motivated people, as opposed to
grade-motivated mules who are only led forward by the dangling of carrots.
The dull student with thick-lensed glasses, he says, was strangely unaware that
she could look at things with her own eyes. She didn't know that she could
venture off the beaten path but forcing her to start with that upper left hand
brick left her with no options. There were no paths by which she could approach
that brick. There were no essays about that brick for her to imitate and that
brick conformed to nobody's idea of a standard essay topic. What made it work
was the way it precluded the possibility of taking a path already cut by
somebody else. She had no choice but to find her own way, to speak with her own
voice, to see with her own eyes. However you like to imagine it, fresh eyes or
new roads, the idea is the same. Quality is the goal of every creative person
but the route to that goal should be determined by your own nature, not imposed
by external rules or standards. The latter can be helpful so long as you
realize such rules are abstractions based on somebody els
e's journey and so some of them may not apply in your case. Imitating somebody
else's success might very well be a betrayal of your own nature or otherwise
work against you.
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